The Chessmen (7 page)

A number of heads turned in their direction, and Ewan and Peter started pushing their way towards the group.

‘Gamekeeper and water bailiff,’ Jamie said. ‘Good men, both.’

Ewan was a man in his fifties, with a deeply creased face weathered brown by all the hours he spent outdoors. Peter was younger, but a monster of a man with a full beard, like horsehair bursting out of a mattress. They all shook hands.

‘Fin is our new head of security,’ Jamie said. ‘He’s going to catch our poachers.’ Both men cast sceptical looks in Fin’s direction but kept their counsel.

Fin said, ‘It might be an idea if we didn’t advertise it, Mr Wooldridge. We don’t want to go showing our hand even before we’ve played a card.’

Kenny laughed. ‘You can’t keep a secret here for five minutes, Fin. You should know that. The poachers probably knew all about you from the minute you set foot on the estate.’

Fin was barely aware of the door opening, the rush of cooler air around their legs, but the sudden lull in the sound of voices from all around the bar immediately caught his attention. He turned to see Whistler standing in the
doorway, and the noise around them fell away to silence, save for the continued pulsing beat of the sound system.

Whistler looked like a wild man straight off the hills. His hair was blown and tangled by the wind. Another day’s growth on his face made him seem even more unkempt, patches of silver mirroring the streaks of it in his hair. His eyes were black, without pupils or highlight. He scanned the faces all turned in his direction, and Fin detected the merest trace of a smile in the set of his lips. There was no doubt he enjoyed being the centre of attention, and his appearance in the bar at Suaineabhal Lodge was a first.

‘What’s wrong? Seen a crowd?’ His voice bellowed out across the pub and everyone was suddenly self-conscious, but locked into a communal stare, and a silence that no one wanted to be the first to break. Whistler pushed his way to the bar. ‘Pint of lemonade.’ The barman seemed transfixed. His frightened rabbit’s eyes darted from Whistler to Jamie and back again. ‘Don’t worry about how I’ll pay for it.’ Whistler appeared to be trying to assuage his doubts. ‘My credit’s good here. The Wooldridges owe me a fortune.’

‘I think you have that wrong, John Angus.’ Jamie’s outward appearance of unruffled calm was betrayed by the faintest tremor in his voice.

Whistler swung his head in Jamie’s direction. ‘Oh? And how’s that, Mister Wooldridge?’

‘You’re the one who owes us. More than ten years in back rent. So there’s a good chance I’ll be sending in the bailiffs to have you removed. From the croft, and the house. Unless you’ve come to settle up tonight.’

‘I’d be happy to, if you’d just cough up what you owe me.’

Someone had turned off the music, and the silence was broken now only by the sound of the wind whistling around the door and windows.

‘We owe you nothing.’

‘Your father does.’

‘How so?’

Whistler swung the rucksack off his back and thumped it down on the bar, unzipping it to reveal one of his carved chessmen inside. ‘A full set he commissioned me to do for the gala day. Job done. Come and get them any time you like.’

Jamie returned his stare, unwavering. ‘You can show me a contract, I suppose.’

And Fin saw doubt creep into Whistler’s eyes for the first time. ‘There was no contract. Your father trusted me, as I trust him.’

‘Well,’ Jamie smiled, knowing now that he had the upper hand, ‘we only have your word for that. And since my father is still in a nursing home following his stroke, that won’t be easily verified.’ He paused. ‘And I can assure you, there will be no money forthcoming until it is.’ He lifted his pint glass from the bar to take a sip, supremely confident now that he had prevailed in the exchange. ‘So if you don’t pay up within the next week, you can expect that visit from the bailiffs.’

The glass never reached his lips. Whistler flew at him. A feral growl like the war cry of a wild animal issued from
a mouth baring yellowed teeth. Jamie’s pint glass went flying, drenching several of the nearest bystanders, the sound of breaking glass accompanying the crash of the two men as they landed on the floor. The noise of the air being forcibly expelled from Jamie’s lungs was painful. Whistler’s full weight had come down on top of him. A big fist swung through the air and caught the young landowner high on the cheekbone. Another sank itself into his gut. Jamie gasped in pain, but didn’t have enough air in his lungs to cry out.

Umpteen pairs of hands pulled Whistler away, Fin’s and Kenny’s among them. And in the confusion of thoughts flashing through his head, Fin remembered that it wasn’t the first time that he had helped drag Whistler off some helpless soul. But Whistler was not about to be subdued easily. He swung his arms wildly, breaking free of the hands that grasped him, turning, eyes blazing and filled with the highlights they had earlier lacked. His fist flew through the air again, catching Fin squarely on the jaw, sending him sprawling back through the crowd to hit the floor like a dead weight, lights flashing in his head.

More than a few of the men there that night knew of the history between Fin and Whistler, of their almost unbreakable teenage bond. It made the fact that Whistler had struck him all the more remarkable. Voices which had arisen out of the earlier silence to bay for blood subsided once again. Feet shuffled backwards, and a space cleared around them. Kenny helped Jamie to his feet, and Whistler just stood there, breathing hard, glaring at Fin lying on the floor. ‘Never
took you for a landlord’s lackey,’ he shouted, as if trying to find an excuse for what he’d done.

Fin pulled himself up on to one elbow and put a hand to his face to check if his jaw was broken. It came away with blood on the fingers where his lip had cut itself on his teeth. Hands reached down to help him up. He stared back at Whistler, and the hush which had descended became one of anticipation. But Fin had no intention of getting involved in a brawl. His hurt went deeper than any external injury. He shook his head. ‘Never took you for anything but a friend.’

Whistler’s remorse was apparent in moist eyes, and in the tightness of his lips, but it wrestled for ascendancy with the anger that still gripped him. ‘I’ve no quarrel with you.’

‘You just hit me!’

‘And you’ve taken sides against me with him.’ He turned and almost growled at Jamie, who flinched involuntarily.

‘I’ve taken sides with no one, Whistler. I’m on the side of the law. And you’re breaking it.’

‘Sometimes being on the side of the law’s being on the wrong side, Fin.’

‘I don’t think so.’ But no sooner were the words out of his lips than he thought of Donald.

Whistler snorted, like a horse impatient to be off at a canter. ‘Well, let’s see. It’s a full moon the morn’s night. A great night to be out and about at Loch Tathabhal. Fish’ll be biting, for sure. Maybe you’ll see me there, and maybe you won’t. But if you do . . . well, maybe then we’ll see who’s right and who’s wrong.’

It was clear to every man there that Whistler was issuing a challenge. Catch me if you can. He turned and pushed his way roughly to the door and vanished out into the night.

‘Call the police, Kenny,’ Jamie said. He was white with anger, shaking and still trying to recover his breath.

‘No.’ Fin stopped Kenny in his tracks.

‘He assaulted both of us, in full view of every man here.’ Jamie could barely control his fury.

‘Men fight,’ Fin said. ‘That’s a matter between them. Not for the police. You told the man you were going to take away his home. His family home for generations. How did you think he would take it?’

‘He’s ten years behind on his rent!’

‘And what’s that to you? A few hundred pounds. You owe him for the chessmen.’

‘Says who?’

‘I’ve seen them. The full set. He didn’t do that for fun. I suggest you check with your father.’

Jamie took two steps towards him, lowering his voice, a threat in it now. ‘You get him, Macleod. You get him, or I’ll bring in people who can.’ Fin noticed how the friendly ‘Fin’ had been dropped now in favour of his surname.

‘Oh, I’ll deal with him,’ Fin said, green eyes fixed on Jamie’s. ‘But for his sake, not yours.’

It was nearly twenty minutes later that Fin came out into the twilight. The wind had dropped, moonlight washing already across the hills, falling in silvered daubs through the leaves of the trees around the lodge. Stars were only
just visible in a dark, azure sky, and the midges were biting, their season extended by the long, hot, dry spell. Clouds of the tiny flies, masked by the fading light, filled the night. Unseen but certainly felt.

The hubbub in the bar fading behind him, Fin saw the shadows of two figures beneath the trees across the yard, and he realized with a shock that it was Whistler and Anna. He could hear their voices raised in anger, but not what they were saying. They hadn’t noticed him, and he stood still, watching from a distance, listening to their argument rising in pitch. Until suddenly she slapped her father with such force that he actually stepped back. The sound of it rang out across the night. Such a powerful strike from such a small person. Anna Bheag. Wee Anna. Dominating the big man who was her father. She turned immediately and hurried up the path towards the house, and Fin was sure he heard a sob catching in her throat.

Both men stood without moving for what seemed like an age, Whistler still unaware of Fin’s presence, until Fin cleared his throat and the big man’s head snapped round. They stood for several moments more, staring at each other through the late evening gloom. Then Whistler turned abruptly and walked away into the night without a backward glance.

Fin and Gunn stood by the helicopter watching the recovery team at work below. It had taken another hour for them to get there, and the day was starting to fade. Professor Wilson had been amazed to discover that he could actually get a signal for his mobile phone if he stood up above them on the shoulder of the mountain. He was talking animatedly to someone back in Edinburgh.

Gunn was gazing into the valley in reflective silence. He turned suddenly towards Fin. ‘I got a letter from the Presbytery yesterday, Mr Macleod. Calling me to give evidence at Donald Murray’s trial, or whatever it is they’re calling it.’

Fin nodded. No doubt his would be waiting for him at home. And he wondered what he would say to those people who wanted to throw Donald Murray out of their Church. He closed his eyes and recalled the horror of that night in Eriskay when two men from Edinburgh had faced them with guns and the promise of death. And Donald had arrived like an avenging angel to take the life of one of them and save all the others. A man motivated by the threat to the lives of his daughter and granddaughter, his progeny, the only reason, perhaps, that God had put him on this earth.

If you believed in God, that is.

‘I don’t
have
to go,’ Gunn said. ‘I mean, it’s not a legal summons.’

Fin nodded. ‘No.’ Then frowned. ‘But why wouldn’t you?’

‘Because I’m afraid I might do him more harm than good, Mr Macleod.’ Fin had long since given up trying to get Gunn to call him by his first name. While still in the force Fin had been a Detective Inspector, superior in rank, and George was nothing if not a stickler for protocol. Even though Fin had long since quit the police.

‘Why would telling the truth do him any harm?’

‘Because after these bloody gangsters snatched Donna and the baby from Crobost, and went south looking for you and the others, all Donald Murray had to do was lift a phone and call the police. But he was so hell-bent on dealing with it himself. If he had just called us, things might have turned out differently.’

‘Aye.’ Fin nodded gravely. ‘We’d all have been dead. A couple of unarmed island policemen would have been no match for two armed thugs from the mainland, George. You know that.’

Gunn shrugged reluctant acquiescence. ‘Maybe.’

‘Why else would the Crown have dropped the manslaughter charges?’

‘Because they knew they wouldn’t get a conviction in a court of law, Mr Macleod.’ He scratched his head. ‘But a court of the Free Church of Scotland . . . that’s another matter altogether.’

Fin sighed and nodded acknowledgement, and was swamped by concern for a friend he felt powerless to help.

Gunn watched him for a moment, then turned back to the plane in the valley below. ‘I don’t know how we get that thing out of there. But I suppose they’ll want it back in Stornoway for examination. There might be a hangar at the airport that we could use to store it. Or maybe the old Clansman mill in town. I think that’s still empty. But then, we’d never get it through the streets. No, the airport would be best.’

He turned, looking for Fin’s approval. But Fin was barely listening. He said, ‘George, is there any chance I might be able to attend the post-mortem?’

‘Not a hope in hell, sir. No offence. You were a good cop, Mr Macleod. And I’ve no doubt you would bring some useful experience to the PM. But you’re not a police officer any more, just a material witness to the discovery of the plane. You and John Angus Macaskill.’ He shuffled awkwardly. ‘I had a call before we left. There’s an inquiry team on its way. And if I let you anywhere near that autopsy room, the chances are I’d be the next one on the table being cut open to establish cause of death.’ His smile was touched by embarrassment before fading. ‘How come Whistler Macaskill didn’t come with you to report the find?’

Fin hesitated. He remembered how strangely Whistler had reacted to the discovery of the plane. By the time Fin had climbed back up to the beehives Whistler and all his stuff had gone. And on the long walk back to retrieve his Suzuki, Fin had caught not a single sight of him. He glanced awkwardly
at Gunn and shrugged. ‘I guess he thought it wouldn’t be necessary.’

Gunn gave him a long, hard look. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Mr Macleod?’

‘Nothing, George.’

Gunn sighed. ‘Well, I don’t have time to go looking for him myself right now. But when you see him, you can tell him to present himself at the police station in Stornoway first chance he gets. I’ll need a statement.’